A Shadow Bright and Burning

by Jessica Cluess

  “One day when I am dead?”

  “When you are in God’s own kingdom, safe and secure, you will thank me.”

  A thought occurred. “Last night when you cried by the fire and said it will be so hard to let me go, you meant to my death. Didn’t you? I thought, stupidly, that you would miss having me in your home.”

  “From the moment I met you at Brimthorn, I felt so much affection for you. You’re as dear to me now as any child of my own flesh.” He took my face into his hands and wiped tears from my eyes that I didn’t know had appeared.

  “Don’t let them kill me,” I whispered.

  He visibly struggled with himself. “One day you’ll understand.”

  “I never will.” I pulled back, stifling a sob. “Get out. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

  “Listen to me—”

  There was commotion upstairs. We jumped at the echoed sounds of shouting through the corridors, of running to and fro. Cursing, the guard unlocked the door and let Agrippa out.

  “What’s happening?” I said.

  “Hush up,” the guard snapped as he locked the door. He spoke with Agrippa as they moved for the stairs. Agrippa looked back one last time and vanished. I listened to the shouts and shrieks, running, and what sounded like pots and pans clattering to the floor. Mystified, I clutched the bars and waited. Twenty minutes later, my guard returned. He mopped the sweat from his brow and took up his post again.

  “What was it?” I said.

  “Why don’t you be quiet like a good girl. It’s nothing that concerns you.”

  —

  THEY HAD PORRIDGE, AND WITHOUT IT I was lost. I twisted my wrists about in the manacles over and over again, but there was no way I could work a hand free.

  “You all right, miss? I mean, you don’t need water or nothing?” the guard said, peering at me through the bars as though I were some exotic animal on display. My golden ball gown was perhaps not the normal prison fashion. He smiled as he looked at me in my cage. Something about the expression on his face struck me as being overly friendly.

  “No water, thank you.”

  “You’re polite. Poor little thing.” He was a young blond man with a bit of a second chin. He leaned against the bars. “You know, they got different ways of treatin’ sorcerers and magicians. Sorcerers, they take the stave and chain ’em, and that’s that. With magicians, they chain the neck to the feet, so that they can’t stand up, and chain the hands behind the back. Gag ’em, too, so they can’t speak. Back in the old days, they’d even cut out the tongue. Master Agrippa ordered you was to be treated like a sorcerer. Very good of him.”

  “Yes.” I tried to conceal my revulsion. Why was he looking at me in so familiar a way? “Can you tell me where I am?”

  “The Tower of London. This is the magic wing. They built these cells for troublesome magic users hundreds of years ago.”

  Another guard in uniform came down the stairs. “It’s my turn,” said a young man with a rough voice.

  “No it ain’t. She’s mine for the night. They already told me,” my guard said, sounding annoyed. “Go on.”

  “You’re due for a break.”

  “Come back in an hour. I’m busy.” After some more hushed words, he sent the young man back up the stairs. The blond guard leaned against the bars. He smiled at me. “You got nothin’ to worry about from me,” he said. “Them others might mistreat you, bein’ a dangerous magician and all. I won’t hurt you.”

  “Thank you,” I muttered. His gaze was unsettling.

  “Lockin’ up a pretty little thing like you.” He sighed. “What’s the world comin’ to?”

  I turned to the wall, considering. He thought I was only a weak, pretty little girl. What had Magnus said about acting? Show them what they want to see, and they’ll believe anything.

  Concentrating, I set fire to the bottom of my gown and screamed. The guard threw open the door and helped me beat the flames out. Much to my distaste, I pretended to faint.

  “Careful!” the guard said, catching me as I collapsed. He touched my cheek. “Poor, scared little thing, ain’t ya?”

  “My powers are so temperamental,” I whimpered.

  “How could they harm a sweet little thing like you?” he said, sounding cross. I gave a weary sigh. He lifted me up in his arms, set me down on my cot, and left. I forced myself to lie there for ten minutes, waiting for the right opportunity. “They taught you all this fancy magic stuff?” the guard said, returning to the door.

  “Yes. I can’t control my power.” I sat up, shyly playing with a tendril of my hair. “It got so bad they had to teach me to give somebody else temporary access to my abilities.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “In case I burst into flame and couldn’t put myself out. It was helpful to have a man who could take control.”

  “Why would you give a sorcerer your power? Don’t they have their own?”

  “No, this transferred my power to a normal person. The best magic to help me is my own. Anyone could do it, and the footmen in Master Agrippa’s house helped me practice. It was great fun for them, to be allowed to have a sorcerer’s powers even for a short time.” He mercifully took the bait.

  “How would I receive your powers?” He said it casually, but his look was interested.

  “Simple. You need to fetch my stave.”

  He paused, then shuffled off and retrieved Porridge from somewhere out of sight. Good.

  “Take some blood from me and rub it on your bottom lip.”

  “That’s disgustin’.”

  “I know, but it’s the only way.”

  He opened the door while I sat there, chained and ever so proper. Winking, he rubbed his thumb across my cut lip, the result of Palehook’s attack. I forced myself not to shudder when he lingered. He painted the blood onto his own mouth.

  “Now?”

  “I confer the power upon you.” I touched my thumb to my blood and traced the image of a five-point star on his forehead. “Let’s see if it worked. Take the stave, place it to the ground, and say its name: Porridge.”

  He did, and Porridge glowed blue. I gave as much of a girlish clap as I could, wearing those manacles. I knew that men loved being praised beyond life itself. Indeed, the guard looked as if he’d been appointed prime minister. “That it? I can use your power?”

  “Absolutely. There’s one more thing you need to do to have complete control. Hold the end toward yourself—that’s right—and now twist it in your hands two times to the left.” I kept my breathing steady. If he heard the slightest waver, the barest hint of excitement…

  “Why?” Did he sound suspicious? Was that my imagination?

  “Because it conveys my power to you. Imagine that the power is rushing out of the stave to meet you.” I kept my hands in my lap and a smile on my face. I was the image of sweetness.

  Pleased, he did as I’d asked. Warded force struck him in the face and chest, and he collapsed to the floor. A quick examination showed me he was still breathing. Relieved, I took up Porridge and got to work on my manacles. I adjusted Mickelmas’s teapot-to-rodent spell, and within seconds had transformed the shackles into white mice. They scampered down my dress and raced across the cell floor. I was free. Stepping over the fallen guard, I took his key ring and was in the process of locking him in the cell when I heard footsteps coming down the stairs.

  “Enough, Joe. It really is your break,” the young guard said as he returned, and stopped dead. “What the blazes—”

  “Stay back!” I cried, thrusting Porridge at him. The guard took off his hat and stepped out of the shadows, revealing a familiar shock of auburn hair. “Magnus? What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  “Saving you. How the devil did you get free? And knock out the guard?” Eyes wide, he took the keys from me and locked the door. Voices shouted and echoed above us. There was the sound of many feet running in unison down the stairs. He winced. “Smollett and Fisher must’ve spoken to each other and real
ized I shouldn’t be here. Come on!” He took my wrist and led me down the long corridor of cells.

  “How did you know where I was?” I couldn’t believe it.

  “That’s something we really should discuss when we’re not running for our lives,” he said, looking up and down at the rows of cells and counting on his fingers. Now the guards spilled into the corridor from the stairwell. “Would you care to unlock number six?” he said, handing me the keys. “I’ll distract them.”

  Magnus strode back down the hall. With an expert move, he slammed his stave into the floor. The stones beneath the men’s feet turned into soft mounds of sand, and the guards fell on their faces. With another movement, Magnus created a blast of wind that rocked the corridor, coughing up a cloud of dust that blinded the men.

  I found the key and opened the door. We ran inside, locking it after ourselves.

  “I just escaped from one cell, you’ve put me in another one?” I said, bewildered.

  “Try to have some faith,” he muttered, looking around.

  “It was a brilliant escape!”

  “Hush!” He started touching the walls, the bars, a puzzled look on his face.

  “What?”

  “There’s something we can use to flee.”

  Frustrated, I searched the cell for a trapdoor, only to discover a circle of carvings. They looked amazingly odd, like squiggles and backward letters. “A porter’s circle!”

  “Yes, that. Get us out of here. As the resident magician, you’ll have to figure it out.”

  “You know?” I felt naked before him. Yet Magnus had still attempted a rescue, knowing full well what I was.

  “Never mind that now. Get us out of here.” He pushed me into the circle, and as the guards came, he blasted them with a shock of energy, mangling the door in the process.

  I knew what to do, but there was room for only one. “Magnus, how will we both fit?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m doing splendidly.” He called the moisture from the stones in the ceiling and drooled brackish water onto the men below.

  “I won’t leave you here.”

  “Stop the heroics and go, Howel,” he snapped. Well, that decided it for me. I leaped onto his back, wrapping my legs and arms about him as best I could in my gown. Magnus teetered backward into the circle.

  “Let’s ask it nicely to take us home,” I said.

  As the now-soaked guards pulled the cell door down, the image of the house in Hyde Park Corner sprang into my mind. The world disappeared, and we fell into blackness.

  —

  “THAT WAS A STRANGE SENSATION,” MAGNUS grunted as we tried to reorient ourselves. He took a few steps forward and stopped. “Howel, you’re a lovely girl and not terribly heavy, but I think we’ll make better time if you get off my back.” He set me down. We’d landed in a wooded area, the mud squishing beneath our feet. “It’s Hyde Park. Never mind. I know where we are. Follow to the right, we’ll make the rendezvous in five minutes.” We set off through the trees.

  “Rendezvous? The others know?”

  “Every one of them.” And apparently none of them cared. The relief was sweet. We walked for a bit, and then he stopped. “Howel, are you all right? They didn’t hurt you, did they?” He touched my chin, studying my cut lip. “Because if they did, I can always turn around and go back. Stuff them into a kettle and make tea, see how they like it.” He tried to keep his tone light, but I heard the anger underneath. I stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek, without thinking. He touched his face in surprise.

  “Thank you for coming to help me,” I said.

  “We had to. You’re one of us. The boys would do the same for me, after all.”

  One of us. The thought made me smile. “So would I.”

  “Well, then the rescue would be guaranteed to go well. Er, Howel?” Even in the moonlight, I could see he was blushing. “What I said in the stables, about you being awful for wanting to be kissed? I didn’t mean it. Really, you can kiss anybody you like. You can kiss the whole lot of us. Good old Dee could use a kiss, really. Kisses. Wonderful things. I’m babbling. I’m sorry for what happened.”

  “You snuck into the bloody tower to save me. That wipes your debt away. There’s no need to apologize.”

  “Then I take it all back.”

  I gave him a playful shove and we moved ahead. I bunched my skirt in one hand, a bit sad, even now, to think of the gold back trailing away in the muddy ground. Eliza had been so proud of it. “What will they do when they find out you helped me?”

  “What matters is you’ll be safe and far away from here by then.”

  I hooked my arm through his. “You’re a true friend.”

  His face lit up. “I am your friend, aren’t I?”

  “Of course.” I squealed as he picked me up in his arms and carried me.

  “To hell with this. I won’t have you sully your dress on the ground.”

  “I can walk. Please put me down.” I laughed. He did, reluctantly.

  Within a moment we saw the house ahead of us, lit like a beacon in the night. The boys stood at the park’s edge, all newly commended and wearing the black silk sorcerers’ cloaks. Snatching up my skirts, I ran for them. We were reunited within moments. Dee caught me up in a tearful hug. Wolff and Lambe patted my back.

  “Come,” Blackwood said, looking about. “We have to move quickly. Before they—”

  There was a great booming noise. The ground trembled, and overhead there came a piercing scream. Black shapes skirted the top of the dome. The Familiars had arrived, dozens of them, maybe even a hundred.

  The bells began to toll. “He’s come back,” Blackwood whispered. “And he’s brought an army.”

  Korozoth had made my escape far more difficult.

  We ran down the steps to the servants’ entrance, seeing no one as we moved through the kitchen and toward the stairs. We had to find Rook. Blackwood and I ran to the attic.

  Rook’s door was unlocked and open. Inside, we found the bed had been flipped, the pillow torn. These were signs of struggle, and Rook was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where is he?” I said. My voice sounded small.

  “Howel!” Dee thundered up the stairs, the floorboards trembling as he arrived in the corridor. “Lilly’s in your room. She’s crying.”

  We found Lilly curled up in a corner, her cheeks marked with tears. She burst into fresh sobbing when she saw me.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “It’s R-Rook. Th-they snatched him.” She couldn’t get enough breath.

  “Who?”

  “Master Palehook and his young gentlemen. Master Agrippa let ’em in about an hour ago—”

  “Master Agrippa’s here?” I said, my blood running cold. I’d hoped he’d still be at the ball.

  “Yes. Soon after he came home the men arrived. He let ’em in and they went up to the servants’ rooms. Master Palehook waited in the hall while his men went inside the room. Rook fought them off. I tried to help, but it all got so strange. The room went dark. They were screaming, like they couldn’t get out of it. Then Master Palehook put a knife to me.” She began to sob, her chest heaving. “Said he’d kill me if Rook didn’t go with them. The darkness vanished, and then they knocked him senseless and took him away. I wanted to help, but they were rough with me.” She covered her face with her small hand. Her wrist bore a patterned bruise, like finger marks.

  “Where were they going?” My head was buzzing.

  “I don’t know,” she wailed.

  “Where’s Agrippa?” God, I would make him sorry for this.

  “In the library, I think.”

  Dee helped Lilly off the floor and set her in a chair while the rest of us stormed downstairs. I entered the room first. We found Agrippa slumped in a chair before his fire, lost in thought. When he saw me, he leaped to his feet. We all five stood together in a half circle, blocking his exit. I pointed Porridge at his chest.

  “What have you done with Rook?” I struggled to k
eep from shouting.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” He didn’t seem angry so much as bewildered. “What is all this?”

  “I ought to knock you straight into your own fireplace,” Magnus growled. He stood beside me.

  “You don’t know what she is.”

  “A magician?” Wolff scoffed. “You think we care about that?”

  “She’s one of us,” Lambe said. He and Wolff went to Agrippa’s other side; we were all circling him now.

  “Where is Rook?” I shouted.

  “He told me it was the only way,” Agrippa muttered, the expression on his face torn between grief and terror.

  “What does Palehook want with him?” Blackwood said.

  Agrippa collapsed into his armchair. “I don’t know.”

  “You must have some idea,” I said.

  “I was trying to remedy my mistakes. Was that such a terrible crime?”

  “It is if it harms the innocent,” Blackwood said.

  “I’m trying to keep her innocent! That’s what’s most important!” Agrippa looked like a caged animal. The doors boomed open, and Dee strode into the library, the tips of his ears flushed pink. We all scattered before him. He loomed over Agrippa, who shrank further into his seat.

  “Did you let them hurt Lilly?” Dee’s face turned crimson. I’d never seen him this angry.

  Agrippa winced, his shame evident. Dee balled his fist and walloped Agrippa across the jaw, knocking the man over the arm of his chair. Lambe instinctively moved to tend to our Master, but Wolff held him back.

  “Where have they taken him?” I said, tucking Porridge just beneath Agrippa’s chin. He brought his hand to the already swelling right side of his face.

  “I have no idea.”

  “We trusted you,” I said.

  Agrippa closed his eyes. “I wanted you to trust me. I never dreamed any of this might happen.”

  The sincerity of his tone nearly undid me. “This has happened. Now help us find him.”

  The library doors opened and the butler entered, holding a letter. He didn’t seem to notice anything amiss as he threaded his way through one bewildered, heartbroken boy after another, nor did he seem to observe that I was in the act of threatening the master of the house. He approached Agrippa’s chair.